gotta love that honey rum... ;)

ok, for starters i apologize for leaving anybody out on the shout out for some TLC. i meant to say that i really needed some roomie tlc, some poppy tlc, som bff tlc, som CG tlc, basically - some USA tlc!!!! :)

and beer was a good idea steve, but kelli and mark took it one step farther and made me a nice mug of hot honey rum and it really helped. it licked my cough in a matter of minutes. so maybe another dose tonight might just do the trick :)

so yeah, needless to say i am in newry, ireland right now!! it is absolutely beautiful! it is more in the country than the other cities i've been to so its just perfect!! my trip here yesterday went smooth as silk. i didn't realize that i had to switch trains a couple times, and take a bus from one station in dublin to a different one, but i worked it out :) and the sun was bright all day yesterday which made for a nice day of traveling. its just too bad that its not sunny on one of the days that i want to spend outside... :( if the weather improves today (and stops raining) i am gonna bike this one path that kelli and mark told me about. its about 20 miles one way. i'm pretty pumped about it. so hopefully the weather will clear up. if not mark is gonna take me into town and i'll walk around, go shopping, putz around and then kelli will pick me up after work. and some of their friends are having peeps over tonight for dinner and they have graciously allowed me to tag along. so that'll be fun. kelli and mark have been great!!! kelli is quite the hostess with the mostess and it has been wonderful just to chat and catch up! and mark is full of stories that just crack me up! and his accent is awesome (of course), i can understand about 90% of what he says :)

a major highlight to my arriving in newry was a little goody bag that lindsey had kelli's mom bring over when she was here visiting last week!!!!! it was full of all things i love - pringles, cookies, hot tamales, you name it! so great. thanks SOOOO much linds! you're just about the best BFF in the world!! :)

right now i'm watching THE OFFICE and its 9:30 in the morning. whoop whoop!!!! its the sexual harassment episode and the dundees (my all time fav!!) - freaking awesome! :)

oh yeah, i mentioned some life reflection that i've been doing.... i'll take a couple minutes to go into that. its nothing really major or anything but i've just been doing a lot of thinking while i've been traveling. if this trip has showed me anything about myself its that i am much more a homebody than i thought. i mean, i've always enjoyed an evening in as opposed to going out on the town. but i've been missing my family and friends immensely while i've been gone. and the other night i was sitting on my bunkbed looking thru the photo album that liz made me for this trip and seeing pictures of my neices made me start to really question if living/working overseas is something i really want for my life. i mean, i've never been 100% set on working overseas after spanish school but its been at least an option. but i just really love the relationships i have back at home and i really don't want to be away from everybody... if that makes sense. and i don't know, maybe it is selfish of me to want to be home and an active part of people's lives (instead of being maintaining long distance relationships). i'll have to work through that or something. but as of right now, its just something i'm thinking, so don't hold me to it :) but its weird how things work out b/c i would have never thought that i would want to actually plant myself in st. charles! i mean, what?!?! but i've grown to love it, i love my church, i love my family, etc! so who knows, thats just something i've been thinking about. and i am definitely still planning on going to spanish school, thats for sure! b/c i still totally want to become fluent in spanish. but another thing i've been thinking about since i've been here is the idea of translating. i know that a girl who used to go to church goes around with spanish speaking people to doctors appointments and things like that and she translates for them. that sounds really interesting to me so its something i'd like to at least look into. once again, don't hold me to it at this point - these are just thoughts.... :) so yeah, who knows where life will lead me. things might totally change once i'm down in costa rica, but as for now, i'm excited for the few ideas that have come into my mind thus far...... so now huge life reflections, but life reflections none the least ;)